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barbara lee
AOC Vows to File Articles of Impeachment After Supreme Court Trump Ruling
"Today's ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture."
Jul 01, 2024
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Monday said she will file unspecified articles of impeachment U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority ruled that former President Donald Trump is entitled to "absolute immunity" for "official acts" performed while he was in office, a decision that prompted dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor to declare her "fear for our democracy."
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said on social media that "the Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control."
"Today's ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture," she added. "I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return."
The House of Representatives reconvenes next Monday.
The justices ruled 6-3 along ideological lines Monday in Trump v. United States that "the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" and that "he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."
Dissenting, Sotomayor asserted: "Never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former presidents will be cloaked in such immunity."
Far-right Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dismissed calls to recuse themselves from the case over alleged conflicts of interest. In addition to them and Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's three Trump appointees sided with the ex-president in the case.
The decision means it is highly unlikely that Trump will face a trial for his alleged role in fomenting the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection before November's election, in which he is the presumptive Republican nominee. In addition to four felony charges in that case, Trump faces one trial in Fulton County, Georgia for his alleged effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and another in Florida over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.
In May, Trump was convicted on 34 felony charges related to the falsification of business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election. The former president was also impeached twice while in office, although the Senate did not convict him either time.
At least one other House lawmaker—Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Fla.)—said he supports Ocasio-Cortez's move. Other progressive lawmakers expressed alarm over Monday's ruling.
"Presidents are not kings. Trump should absolutely be held criminally liable for inciting a violent mob to overturn the 2020 election," said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). "This ruling sets an incredibly dangerous precedent. This extremist court has put our democracy on life support."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said that "the far-right extremist majority has politicized our highest court, undermined its legitimacy, and has created a dangerous 'absolute' immunity for a president's official acts."
"This is a rogue, untethered, and damaging Supreme Court. MAGA extremist justices also are ignoring the festering corruption in their ranks," he added. "We need justices committed to justice. Stolen seats filled with partisan hacks lead to alarming results. Today's ruling is devastating to our democracy."
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) asked, "If brazenly attempting to overturn a democratic election by claiming the powers of the presidency can be a so-called 'official' act of the president, then where does it end?"
"If a former president who has fomented an insurrection at our Capitol and who now promises to serve as a dictator on day one back in office can avoid accountability in a court of law, then as Justice Sotomayor stated, I too 'fear for our democracy,'" he added.
Some progressive groups and campaigners also called for the impeachment of the six right-wing justices.
"The Supreme Court is a corrupt institution that's more concerned with advancing their ideological agenda than upholding the Constitution," Sunrise Movement said on social media. "Congress must move forward with impeachment."
Erica Payne, founder and director of Patriotic Millionaires, said in a statement that "the Supreme Court's decision effectively legalizes the use of political violence by a president so long as it is an 'official act.'"
"This relieves the presidency—and the sitting president—from the most basic level of accountability while putting our entire constitutional republic in mortal danger," she continued. "Donald Trump incited an insurrection and encouraged his thugs to storm the Capitol. The idea that he should not be held accountable if these actions were 'official' is an egregiously partisan attempt to deny reality."
"This decision is the culmination of a relentlessly executed, multidecade plan to destroy American democracy," Payne contended. "It is the inevitable outcome of rank corruption facilitated by a malignant class of American oligarchs who, over decades, bought and paid for a complicit Supreme Court."
"The frog in the pot is now at a rolling boil," she added. "The president can encourage his thugs to murder members of Congress without fear of legal repercussions. If Democrats do not immediately take bold action, historians will mark today as the moment illiberal authoritarians cemented their rule over the United States of America."
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'Genocide Denial': Tlaib, Lee Slam Bipartisan Effort to Suppress Gaza Death Toll
"They want to erase the Palestinians who are living," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib, "and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead."
Jun 27, 2024
Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Barbara Lee took to the House floor Wednesday to denounce an amendment to next year's State Department spending bill that would ban U.S. officials from using agency funding to cite casualty figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz's (D-Fla.) amendment to H.R. 8771, the State Department Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2025, passed by a vote of 269-144 on Thursday with broad bipartisan support. The bipartisan measure—co-sponsored by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), and Carol Miller (R-W.Va.)—bans State Department officials from using agency funds to cite any statistics from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
"How absolutely unconscionable that my colleagues are offering an amendment to prevent our U.S. government from even citing the Palestinian death toll," said Tlaib (D-Mich.). "Since 1948... there has been a coordinated effort, especially in this chamber, to dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence."
"The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians did not end in 1948," Tlaib continued. "Today... we are witnessing the Israeli apartheid government carry out a genocide in Gaza, and in real time, and this amendment is an attempt to hide it."
Noting the "more than 15,000 Palestinian children" killed by Israel's bombs, bullets, and starvation-inducing siege, Tlaib said that "six children... are killed in Gaza every single hour."
"But Palestinians are not just numbers," she said. "Behind these numbers are real people—mothers, fathers, sons, daughters who have their lives stolen from them and their families torn apart, and we should not be trying to hide it."
"These are innocent children and babies who have been bombed in their tents, burned alive, dismembered, and deliberately starved to death. Where is our shared humanity in this chamber?" Tlaib asked. "There is so much anti-Palestinian racism in this chamber that my colleagues don't even want to acknowledge that Palestinians exist at all—not when they're alive, and now, not even when they're dead."
"It's absolutely disgusting," she said. "This is genocide denial."
"I won't remain silent as the only Palestinian-American serving in Congress, while folks attempt to erase those who were killed with our own weapons," the congresswoman vowed, holding up a thick ream of paper that she said was a list of Palestinians killed during the war, to be entered into the Congressional Record.
"The list is too long that I can't even submit it because of the text limit," she added.
Lee (D-Calif.) said that the Gaza Health Ministry's data is "often the only information available about what is happening on the ground in Gaza."
"This amendment would severely inhibit the United States government's ability to assess the situation," she warned.
"Israel has sealed Gaza's borders barring foreign journalists and others who can offer this reporting," Lee added. "The journalists and medical professionals who are there are unable to account for all of the bodies trapped under rubble and discovered in mass graves."
Lee noted that the Gaza Health Ministry's figures "have been found to be credible in the past, holding up to United Nations scrutiny, independent investigations, and even Israel's tallies."
Israel Defense Forces officials have also concurred with the roughly 2:1 civilian-to-militant fatality figure claimed by the Gaza Health Ministry.
In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged that "over 25,000" Palestinian women and children had been killed in Gaza up to that date, although the Pentagon subsequently attempted to walk back his admission.
President Joe Biden has been accused of genocide denial for casting aspersions on Gaza Health Ministry casualty reports.
"The president paved the way for horrific amendments like these when he questioned Palestinian death counts that were deemed credible by independent human rights organizations and our own State Department," said Tariq Habash, a former U.S. Education Department official who resigned earlier this year over the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza.
Moskowitz—whose all-time top campaign contributor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—contended Wednesday that "at the end of the day, the Gaza Ministry of Health is the Hamas Ministry of Health" while disdaining "the idea that the United States government would rely on a terrorist organization for statistics."
However, the State Department has repeatedly—and uncritically—cited the ministry's figures in past reports on previous Israeli attacks on Gaza.
In November, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf testified before Congress that the true death toll from the current Israeli war on Gaza is likely "even higher" than reported, as thousands of Palestinians are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed-out buildings.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 37,765 Palestinians—mostly women and children—have been killed during Israel's 265-day assault on the embattled strip. More than 86,400 Gazans have been wounded, and over 11,000 others are missing.
Israel's conduct in the war is the subject of an ongoing genocide trial at the International Court of Justice. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is also seeking to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity including extermination and forced starvation, as well as three Hamas leaders for alleged extermination and other crimes.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres also recently added Israel and Hamas—whose political wing has governed Gaza for a generation—to its "List of Shame" of countries and governments that kill and harm children.
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Historic Number of Democratic Reps Vote Against Unconditional Aid to Israel
"Most Americans do not want our government to write a blank check to further Prime Minister Netanyahu's war in Gaza," a group of nearly 20 of the 37 no-voting lawmakers said.
Apr 20, 2024
Nearly 40 House Democrats voted against a measure to send around $26 billion more to Israel as it continues its war on Gaza that human rights experts have deemed a genocide.
While the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act passed the Republican-led House by a vote of 366-58, party insiders said it was significant that such a large number of Democrats had opposed it, with more centrist lawmakers joining progressives who have called for a cease-fire since October.
"Despite the weapons aid package passing, this is the largest number of Democratic lawmakers to vote against unrestricted weapons aid for Israel in recent memory," senior Democratic strategist Waleed Shahid observed on social media.
"If Congress votes to continue to supply offensive military aid, we make ourselves complicit in this tragedy."
Human rights lawyer, lobbyist, and former Democratic National Committee committeewoman Yasmine Taeb posted that it was "incredibly significant that 37 Democrats voted NO and rejected AIPAC's role and influence in the party."
Senior Democrats who opposed the funding included Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.)
The bill earmarks around $4 billion for Israel's missile defense systems and more than $9 billion for humanitarian aid to Gaza, according toThe Associated Press. However, while lawmakers approved of individual expenditures, they balked at giving more unconditional military aid to the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"U.S. law demands that we withhold weapons to anyone who frustrates the delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid, and President Biden's own recent National Security Memorandum requires countries that use U.S.-provided weapons to adhere to U.S. and international law regarding the protection of civilians," McGovern said in a statement explaining his vote. "To date, Netanyahu has failed to comply. It's time for President Biden to use our leverage to demand change."
Nearly 20 Democratic representatives released a joint statement explaining their vote. They were McGovern, Doggett, Watson Coleman, Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Greg Casar (D-Texas), Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), André Carson (D-Ind.), Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), and Jill Tokuda (D-Hawaii).
"This is a moment of great consequence—the world is watching," the lawmakers wrote. "Today is, in many ways, Congress' first official vote where we can weigh in on the direction of this war. If Congress votes to continue to supply offensive military aid, we make ourselves complicit in this tragedy."
The lawmakers clarified that their no votes were specifically "votes against supplying more offensive weapons that could result in more killings of civilians in Rafah and elsewhere."
While they acknowledged that Israel had a right to defend itself, they argued that its greatest security would come from a cease-fire that enabled the release of hostages, humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and peace negotiations to begin in earnest.
"Most Americans do not want our government to write a blank check to further Prime Minister Netanyahu's war in Gaza," they concluded. "The United States needs to help Israel find a path to win the peace."
Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who also voted no, said that he "could not in good conscience vote for more offensive weapons to be given to Israel to be used in Gaza without any conditions attached."
Pocan further called the "devastation inflicted upon innocent civilians in Gaza" "unjustifiable" and argued that "further arming Netanyahu and his extreme coalition could only lead us to a wider conflict in the Middle East."
In a speech on the House floor, Lee also criticized the bill for failing to restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which provides the bulk of aid to the Gaza Strip. The U.S. paused funds for the agency following Israeli allegations that 12 of its employees participated in Hamas' October 7 attack, but other nations have since restored funding as the veracity of these allegations has been called into question.
"This is a grave abdication of U.S. humanitarian obligations," Lee said. "It is simply nonsensical to provide badly needed humanitarian assistance while simultaneously funding weapons that will be used to make the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worse."
She added, "The United States taxpayers should not be funding unconditional military weapons to a conflict that has created a catastrophic humanitarian disaster."
The bill sending funds to Israel was only one of several measures passed on Saturday as part of a $95 billion foreign spending package that will also provide a long-delayed approximately $61 billion for Ukraine in its war with Russia and around $8 billion to counter China in the Indian and Pacific oceans. Among the bills passed Saturday was one banning popular social media app TikTok in the U.S. if the Chinese company that owns it refuses to sell, theAP reported further.
The package will now go to the U.S. Senate, which could pass it as early as Tuesday. President Joe Biden has promised to sign the measures as soon as he receives them.
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